The World Cup Effect

For Australian families, the World Cup is one of the biggest events in world sport, but whether you can actually watch it depends entirely on where the tournament is hosted.

For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, we scored every game in the tournament on a 0–100 child watchability scale, factoring in kick-off time (converted to local Australian time), day of the week, school holiday status by state, and the significance of the match. The result is a comprehensive picture of which games Australian children can realistically watch and which ones they can't. Watchability also matters because major tournaments don’t just drive viewing, they drive participation. 

A recent example of this is the Matildas effect from the 2023 Women’s World Cup. It created a spike of interest among young players and families, who began taking more interest in the sport. The number of games watchable for children and families at this World Cup suggests that inspiration and participation are strongest when the sport is more accessible, allowing children to watch key moments live, talk about them at school, and then get involved through local clubs and programs.

Key takeaways:

• The 2026 World Cup is the most watchable tournament for Australian children in over 20 years, with North American kick-off times converting to weekend mornings and early afternoons across most of Australia, the ideal viewing window for school-age children.

• Western Australia is the state with the fewest watchable games throughout the tournament. Perth's two-to-three-hour time zone behind the east coast means games that score in the high 80s to mid-90s for watchability in Sydney and Melbourne can fall to the mid-40s watchability range in Western Australia and to around 60 in Perth.

• The biggest matches are the hardest to watch. As the tournament reaches the knockout rounds, kick-offs shift earlier in Australian time. Both semi-finals and the Final land around 5 am AEST, producing national average scores as low as 27.1 - a genuine anticlimax after a group stage full of near-perfect viewing.

• The 2023 Women’s World Cup was the single biggest inspirational event in Australian football history. Equipment searches jumped +90.46%, 25 percentage points above the next-best reading, and female participation rose +18.46%, growing 2.5 times faster than males in the same year.

• The deeper the tournament run, the stronger the inspiration effect. The 2022 Qatar Round of 16, the Socceroos’ deepest World Cup campaign since 2006, produced a +12.24% total participation lift with every age cohort positive. Stage matters more than tournament type: get past the group stage, and the grassroots numbers move.

• Watchability is the hidden multiplier. The 2018 Asian Cup runners-up campaign returned -1.52% equipment and -16.67% participation despite reaching the final, played in Jordan, at inconvenient hours, outside Australia’s registration window. A deep run Australians can’t watch doesn’t convert into sign-ups.

Australia's most watchable 2026 World Cup games share a single commonality: a weekend kick-off in Australian time between roughly 10 am and 2 pm AEST. North American evening kick-offs convert directly into the optimal window for school-age children, producing a cluster of perfect watchability of 100 fixtures, unlike any recent tournament.

Here are the most watchable games: 

• Australia v Turkey (Sunday 14 June, 2 pm AEST) 

• USA v Paraguay (Saturday 13 June, 11 am AEST).

• Tunisia v Japan (Sunday 21 June, 2 pm AEST)

• Turkey v Paraguay (Saturday 20 June, 1 pm AEST)

• Jordan v Argentina (Sunday 28 June, 12 pm AEST) 

• Algeria v Austria (Sunday 28 June, 12 pm AEST) 

• Egypt v Iran (Saturday 27 June, 1 pm AEST)

The pattern that emerges is clear: 2026 is the first World Cup in over two decades where Australian families don't need to set an alarm to watch the group stage. The combination of time zones and weekend alignment has created a viewing environment that previous tournaments, hosted in Europe, South America, Africa and the Middle East simply could not offer.

Australia's least watchable 2026 fixtures are weekday group-stage games that kick off mid-morning to midday AEST, landing squarely in the school day when no state is on holiday. The knockout rounds suffer from the opposite problem; they start in the small hours, around 2 am - 8 am AEST. However, while this may be the case, there could be a chance that many schools will allow students to watch the games, as they fall during lunch breaks for many.

Here are the least watchable games:

• South Africa v South Korea (Thursday 25 June 2026, 11 am AEST) 

• Czech Republic v Mexico (Thursday 25 June 2026, 11 am AEST)

• Panama v Croatia (Wednesday 24 June 2026 9 am AEST)

• Colombia v DR Congo ( Wednesday 24 June 2026 12 pm AEST)

• Tunisia v Netherlands (Friday 26 June 2026 9 am AEST)

• Japan v Sweden (Friday 26 June 2026 9 am AEST)

• Turkey v USA (Friday 26 June 2026 12 pm AEST)

• Paraguay v Australia (Friday 26 June 2026 12 pm)

• Argentina v Algeria (Wednesday 17 June 2026 11 am)

• Mexico v South Korea ( Friday 19 June 2026 11 am)

Round-of-32 games create further divisions, with several fixtures scoring a perfect 100 in Victoria and Queensland (on holidays) while registering 0 in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia. These are not marginal differences; they represent a complete inability to watch live for children in some states, while children in others have an ideal viewing experience. Same game, same kick-off time, opposite outcomes determined purely by the school term calendar.

NSW scores 33.7 watchability across the full tournament, above South Australia and Western Australia, but behind Victoria and Queensland. It shares the AEST timezone with the other eastern states, so North American evening kick-offs convert to the same mid-morning and early afternoon windows. The gap with Victoria and Queensland comes down to one factor: school holidays. New South Wales returns to school before the Round of 32 weekday fixtures that score a watchability of 100 in Victoria and Queensland, producing a flat 0 in New South Wales on those same games.

Where New South Wales loses in the group stage, it gains at the closing end of the tournament. New South Wales is the only state on school holidays for the Final (Monday 20 July, 5 am AEST), scoring 52.8 watchability against 18 in Victoria and Queensland and just 6 in South Australia and Western Australia, a 47-point gap on the same match. It also shares holiday status with South Australia and Western Australia across the semi-finals and third-place playoff, scoring a 50.6 watchability on each semi-final and 60.1 on the third-place playoff.

In the Socceroos own matches, New South Wales scored 48 across the group stage, the highest the eastern states have recorded for an Australian World Cup campaign. The caveat is the Paraguay fixture (Friday midday), which scores 0 in New South Wales alongside every other state.

• Overall 2026 World Cup watchability score: 33.7

• Finals advantage: Only state on holidays for the final scores 50.6 on semi-finals, 52.8 on the Final

• Round of 32 gap: Scores 0 on weekday morning fixtures that score 100 in VIC and QLD

Victoria is the joint-best-placed state for 2026 alongside Queensland, scoring an overall watchability of 39.6. Also running on AEST, it means North American evenings convert to ideal mid-morning and early afternoon viewing windows for children. Victoria’s edge over New South Wales in the group stage is its school holiday window, which overlaps a run of Round of 32 weekday morning fixtures in late June and early July. Those games kicking off at 9 am, 10 am, 11 am and 1 pm AEST on weekdays score a perfect 100 in Victoria and Queensland but a flat 0 in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia, where students have returned to school.

Victoria’s position reverses in the knockout rounds. Once school resumes in mid-July, both semi-finals (5 am AEST) score just 17.3 in Victoria, among the lowest of any state and the Final scores 18. The Sunday third-place playoff (7 am) remains watchable at 57.5, rescued by the weekend timing.

In the Socceroos group games, Victoria scored 48, the same as New South Wales and Queensland. The USA fixture drops to 44, and the Paraguay game is 0 in every state.

• Overall 2026 World Cup Watchability score: 39.6, joint-highest of any state

• Round of 32 advantage: Perfect 100 on weekday morning fixtures; New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia score 0 on the same games

• Finals: 17.3 in the semi-finals, 18 in the Final once school resumes in mid-July

South Australia scores a watchability of 28.9, below the three eastern states, but above Western Australia. South Australia runs on ACST in winter, 30 minutes behind AEST, which means a game starting at 11 am in Sydney begins at 10:30 am in Adelaide. That half-hour offset barely affects the best-timed fixtures but compounds on the earliest morning kick-offs, pushing South Australia below the eastern states' scores on those games.

The school holiday calendar creates the sharpest SA divide. For the Round of 32 weekday fixtures that score 100 in Victoria and Queensland, South Australia scores 0, as they have already returned to school. The same 9 am AEST kick-off that is a holiday morning for a Melbourne or Brisbane child falls during school hours in Adelaide.

South Australia recovers ground in the finals. The school holidays extend into mid-July, putting it on break for both semi-finals, scoring 25.3 on each (compared to 17.3 in Victoria and Queensland, which are back in term). The Final on Monday, 20 July, collapses to just 6 in South Australia once holidays conclude; the 5 am Monday kick-off is a school-night penalty. The third-place playoff (Sunday, 7 am) is the most watchable final-stage match for South Australia at 43.7.

In the Socceroos games, South Australia scores a watchability of 40.7 across the group stage. The USA fixture drops to 22 in South Australia, the 30-minute offset turning an early east-coast morning into an even earlier Adelaide start, and Paraguay v Australia scores 0 as it does everywhere.

• Overall 2026 World Cup watchability score: 28.9

• Round of 32: Scores 0 on Victoria and Queensland holiday fixtures. South Australia is back in school by early July.

• Semi-finals: 25.3 (on school holidays) vs 17.3 in Victoria and Queensland (back at school)

• Final: joint-lowest in the country alongside Western Australia (watchability score of 6)

Western Australia is the most penalised state in 2026, scoring an overall watchability of 25.7, the lowest of any state. Perth runs on AWST, two hours behind Sydney in winter. With 2026 kick-offs converting from North American evenings to Australian mornings, that two-hour deficit works against Western Australia throughout the tournament. A game starting at 10 am AEST begins at 8 am in Perth. A 5 am AEST kick-off is 3 am in Perth. Games that score in the high 80s to mid-90s in Sydney and Melbourne can fall to the mid-40s or lower in Western Australia. A perfect 100 watchability on the East Coast becomes 60.5 in Perth, depending on the time.

There is no stage of the 2026 tournament where Western Australia's offset works in its favour. Every kick-off that suits the East Coast is two hours earlier in Perth, and the earliest group-stage and knockout fixtures, which already push watchability down nationally, become effectively unwatchable for school-age children in Western Australia. In the Round of 32 fixtures, where Victoria and Queensland score 100, Western Australia scores a watchability of 0, hit by both the school-term penalty and the timezone. Even where school holidays offer some relief, the clock removes it: Western Australia is on holiday during the semi-finals but scores only 19 (3 am start). The Final scores a watchability of just 6, the joint-lowest in the country alongside South Australia.

The Socceroos own games highlight the state-level divide most clearly. Australia v Turkey (Sunday 2 pm AEST) scores 100 in every state, including Western Australia, a 2 pm eastern kick-off is still noon in Perth. USA v Australia (Saturday 5 am AEST) is where Western Australia separates from the country: the east coast scores a watchability of 44, but Western Australia scores just 16.5. A 5 am Saturday start in Sydney is 3 am in Perth, effectively a pre-dawn start for a school-age child. Paraguay v Australia (Friday midday) scores 0 everywhere.

• Overall 2026 World Cup watchability score: 25.7, the lowest of any state

• Time zone penalty: Two hours behind AEST means every early-morning eastern kick-off is two hours harder to watch in Perth

• Round of 32: Watchability of 0 on weekday morning fixtures penalised by both school term and timezone

• Finals: A watchability of 19 on semi-finals (3 am Perth start), 6 on the Final, joint-lowest in the country

• Socceroos USA v Australia: 16.5 watchability, the lowest of any state on any Socceroos fixture that isn’t a universal zero

The Socceroos' campaign contains two fixtures that highlight just how difficult World Cup viewing can be for Australian children and how quickly an ideal tournament can turn unwatchable depending on when individual games are scheduled.

Paraguay v Australia (Friday 26 June 2026, 12 pm AEST) is the most unwatchable Socceroos game in the 2026 schedule and one of the starkest single-game results in the watchability data. Scoring a flat 0 in every state without exception, it kicks off at midday on a Friday during the school term, no state is on holiday, and the game falls squarely in the middle of the school day. It is a big contrast to Australia v Turkey's perfect 100, and the two fixtures in the same group stage campaign show just how wide the range can be, even within a single tournament.

USA v Australia (Saturday 20 June 2026, 5 am AEST) sits in the middle ground but still presents significant challenges, scoring 39.20 national watchability. While a Saturday slot prevents the complete failure seen with the Paraguay game, a 5 am kick-off will be too early for most school-age children. The east coast reaches a watchability of 44, but Western Australia drops to just 16.5, its two-hour offset turning an already early morning into a pre-dawn experience. This game is watchable with effort in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but barely accessible in Perth.

Looking across the full Socceroos history in the modern era, the tournaments held furthest from Australian time zones produced the worst results across the board. The 2006 Germany campaign averaged just 12.00 national watchability, the lowest of any Socceroos World Cup and 2010 South Africa produced 13.50, both driven by European and African kick-offs converting to the early hours of Australian mornings. Between 2006 and 2014, the Socceroos' national watchability average never exceeded 22.50. The 2026 campaign's projected 46.40 represents a generational improvement, but the presence of Paraguay v Australia as a zero-score fixture is a reminder that even the most favourable tournament can still deliver genuinely unwatchable football.

The link between watching football and wanting to play has always gone hand in hand, but the Matildas made it measurable. Across a decade of Google Trends data and Football Australia participation records spanning every major Matildas and Socceroos tournament from 2015 to 2026, a clear pattern emerges: the bigger the tournament moment, and the more Australians could actually watch it live, the more kids signed up to play. With the 2026 FIFA World Cup hosted in North America and converting to prime family-viewing hours across Australia, the conditions for the biggest inspiration event in men’s football history are already in place.

Three years on, the Matildas effect is still ongoing. The 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup, another home final, another deep run, produced the largest participation search uplift at +114.05%. Registration intent searches more than doubled, which shows that home soil games amplify inspiration to get involved.

The clearest structural pattern in the Matildas dataset is the gap between home and away. The two Australia-hosted tournaments led to an increase in equipment searches of +90.46% and +47.41% - the two strongest readings in the set. The four away tournaments (2015 Canada, 2018 Jordan, 2019 France, 2022 India) ranged from -5.02% to +30.60%. Geographic accessibility - physically attending games, watching at reasonable hours, and the grassroots energy that surrounds a home tournament show the strongest variables.

The 2018 Asian Cup in Jordan highlights this effect. Despite the Matildas reaching the final, equipment interest fell by 1.52% and participation by 16.67%, demonstrating that even a historic run can have a limited impact when the tournament is played overseas. The tournament was played in April, outside Australia’s grassroots registration window, and the time zone made consistent live viewing difficult. A deep run alone doesn’t drive inspiration; Australians need to be able to watch it to feel it.

The short answer is yes, and more consistently than almost any other factor. Tournament progression correlates with inspiration impact across both national teams, with the deepest runs producing the broadest uplifts across search categories, participation cohorts, and demographic segments.

Tournament progression tracks closely with the Socceroos' ability to inspire participation. The two deepest runs in the dataset, the 2015 Asian Cup triumph and the 2022 FIFA World Cup Round of 16 campaign, produced the strongest and most widespread participation uplifts, while the group-stage exits of 2014 and 2018 delivered far more muted results. The 2022 Qatar World Cup is the clearest benchmark available. Australia’s deepest men's World Cup run since 2006 generated positive growth across every participation cohort, led by MiniRoos (+11.60%) and Total participation (+12.24%). It suggests that stage matters more than tournament type; whether it is a World Cup or a continental championship, deeper runs create greater visibility, engagement and ultimately stronger grassroots participation outcomes.

The pattern holds on the women’s side with even more clarity. The deepest Matildas runs in the dataset are the 2023 World Cup (semi-final) and the two final appearances (2018 Asian Cup runners-up; 2026 home Asian Cup runners-up). The 2019 round-of-16 exit returned -39.62%, driven by COVID distortions in the measurement window, not the tournament itself.

We don’t yet know if the Socceroos will make it to the semi-finals. The Matildas’ 2023 semi-final run is the closest insight we have, showing us an +18.46% female participation and +11.49% total growth, amplified by full home-soil energy. A Socceroos equivalent in 2026 arrives without that home advantage, but with a tournament-wide engagement bank built across the most watchable group stage in a generation. The main constraint: the semi-finals and final happen at approximately 5 am AEST, with national watchability scores as low as 27.1. The closing act arrives at the worst possible time, but the inspiration built across the earlier rounds may not disappear with it.

The 2026 World Cup’s time zones alignment with Australian time zones creates a participation floor that no previous Socceroos campaign could offer. How high inspiration increases depends entirely on how far the team goes, but the conditions to deliver the biggest men’s football inspiration event in Australian history have already been set, thanks to The Matildas.

The possibilities for inspiration in the 2026 World Cup are clear: if the Socceroos progress past the Round of 32, the likelihood of inspiration to participate increases substantially. Each knockout game that Australians watch live at a reasonable hour reinforces more attention, more search intent, and more registration consideration. The Matildas data shows that the compounding effect of a deep run is real, and the best opportunity to watch that progression unfold of any Socceroos campaign in the modern era (2006 onward).

For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted across the United States, Canada and Mexico, Australian families are getting the timezone gift they haven’t had in over 20 years. North American evening kick-offs convert to weekend mornings and early afternoons across most of Australia, the optimal window for school-age children. Having certain tournaments kick off at prime time, scoring a perfect 100 across states for some games, due to kick-off times ranging over the weekends between 11 am and 2 pm. This highlights the watchability conditions the North American schedule creates and, in turn, the inspiration to participate and get involved. However, the watchability picture isn’t uniform across Australia and that matters for understanding where the inspiration effect of the 2026 World Cup will land the most.

Western Australia is the most penalised state throughout the 2026 tournament. Perth’s two-to-three-hour offset behind the east coast means games that score mid-80s to high-90s in Sydney and Melbourne can fall to the mid-40s or lower in Western Australia. The same structural disadvantage applies to every early-morning fixture, and it reverses 2018’s dynamics, when Western Australia was actually the best-placed state.

While the North American tournament provides Australia with some of the most family-friendly viewing conditions seen in decades, the benefits are not distributed evenly across the country. States with more accessible kick-off times are likely to experience greater engagement with the tournament, creating more opportunities for children and families to connect with the game in real time. As previous tournaments have shown, when Australians can easily watch the World Cup, the inspiration to participate tends to follow.

Western Australia won’t miss out on the World Cup entirely; however, reduced watchability means fewer opportunities for children and families to tune in live, share the experience and build a connection with the tournament. With research consistently showing that inspiration and participation rise when major sporting events are easily accessible, the timezone disadvantage could dampen some of the inspiration seen elsewhere in Australia, where more family-friendly kick-off times make it easier for the next generation of footballers to engage with the World Cup as it happens.

With Victoria and Queensland ranking joint first for watchability at 39.6, they are the best-placed states to feel the strongest inspiration effect if the Socceroos go deep. The two states lead the country for Round of 32 access, with six weekday morning fixtures scoring a perfect 100 watchability, which scores 0 in every other state, meaning Victorian and Queensland children have more opportunities to watch a potential deep Socceroos run unfold in real time than anywhere else in the country. Based on what previous tournaments have shown, more live viewing moments mean more opportunity for inspiration to convert into grassroots participation

This study explores how major international football tournaments shape grassroots football in Australia, and whether the 2026 FIFA World Cup is scheduled at times that let Australian children watch it. Part 1, the “World Cup Effect”, measures how search behaviour and club participation respond to the Socceroos and Matildas from 2014 to 2026. Part 2, the “Watchability Index”, scores how suitable each tournament’s kick-off times are for school-age children across Australia’s states.

Part 1: The World Cup Effect

Search behaviour. Google Trends data, filtered to Australia, tracked how interest in football-related searches rises around tournaments. Each term was measured on its own scale, so high-intent terms like “kids soccer registration” weren’t drowned out by popular ones like player names. Terms were grouped into participation (intent to play), equipment (intent to buy gear), players (the “star effect”) and team interest. Tournament-level interest was compared against the same 90-day window a year earlier (controlling for the natural January–February registration season), individual matches against the 14 days either side, and interest was broken down by state. As trends report relative interest on a 0–100 scale, all figures are expressed as the percentage change in interest rather than a number of searches; terms like “football registration” were treated with caution, given “football” can mean AFL or rugby league in Australia.

Participation. Registered player numbers from Football Australia’s National Participation Reports were used to test whether search interest converts into real sign-ups in the year after a tournament, broken down by gender and age group (MiniRoos under-12, youth 12–18, senior 19+), where available.

Tournament context and the 2026 projection. Findings were layered over each team’s results – how far they progressed, key matches and standout players – to test whether deeper runs and home tournaments drive stronger responses. These patterns were then used to project how many new players the 2026 men’s World Cup could attract under different Socceroos results, anchored to the comparable 2018 (group exit) and 2022 (Round of 16) tournaments and applied to current registration numbers. Deeper runs use a diminishing-return approach where each stage adds a smaller increment; all projected figures are mid-point estimates.

Part 2: The Watchability Index

Each match was scored 0–100 for the five most populous states (NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, WA) on three factors: kick-off time suitability (how well the local start fits family viewing windows and bedtimes), day of the week (school night, weekend, public holiday or school holidays), and match stage (with knockouts weighted slightly higher). All kick-off times were converted into Australian time zones and scored separately per state to reflect the time differences across the country – an early eastern-states kick-off starts even earlier in Perth. Scores were averaged into an overall figure per tournament and a state-by-state comparison. 2026 fixtures came from the published World Cup schedule and 2002–2022 fixtures from public tournament records; 2026 figures are scheduled and subject to change.

Bringing It Together: State by State

The two parts were combined to compare how strongly each state responds to World Cups against how watchable the tournaments are for that state. This was limited to the five Watchability Index states and to the men’s World Cups (2014–2022), so search interest, participation and watchability all describe the same tournaments – testing whether the states that respond most strongly are also best placed to watch 2026.

Data Limitations

Search interest is relative, not a count of searches, and is measured against the prior year – so a negative result often reflects an unusually big tournament the cycle before rather than a failure to inspire. Because participation is reported annually and both teams often played in the same year, the overall lift can’t always be split between them; female-specific participation is used as the clearest Matildas signal. The 2019–20 period is treated as a COVID outlier, and some smaller states have gaps in earlier years. The 2026 participation and watchability figures are forward-looking projections, and a low watchability score reflects an inconvenient kick-off time, not a lack of interest in the match. The full list of search terms, pages, fixtures and source links is available in the accompanying campaign data sheet.